Hermeneutics for Moderns

Suppose you're traveling to work and you see a stop sign. What do you
do? That depends on how you apply exegesis to the stop sign.

A postmodernist deconstructs the sign (i.e., he knocks it over with
his car), thus ending forever the tyranny of the north-south traffic
over the east-west traffic.

Similarly, a Marxist sees a stop sign as an instrument of class
conflict. He concludes that the bourgeoisie use the north-south road
and obstruct the progress of the workers on the east-west road.

A serious and educated Catholic believes that he cannot understand
the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and their
tradition. Observing that the interpretive community doesn't take it
too seriously, he doesn't feel obligated to take it too seriously
either.

An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Coptic or Anglican or Methodist
or Presbyterian or whatever) doesn't bother to read the sign but he'll
stop if the car in front of him does.

A fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the stop
sign and then waits for it to tell him to go.

A preacher might look up "STOP" in his lexicons of English and
discover that it can mean either:

something which prevents motion,
such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door
from closing;or

a location where a train or bus lets off
passengers.

The main point of his sermon the following Sunday on this
text is: when you see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is
naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off passengers from
your car.

An Orthodox Jew does one of two things:

Take another route to work that doesn't have a stop sign so that he
doesn't run the risk of disobeying the halachah, or

Stop at the stop sign, say "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king
of the universe, who hast given us thy commandment to stop," wait 3
seconds according to his watch, and then proceed.

Incidentally, the
Talmud has the following comments on this passage: R[abbi] Meir says:
He who does not stop shall not live long. R. Hillel says: Cursed is he
who does not count to three before proceeding. R. Simon ben Yudah
says: Why three? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the
Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. R. ben Isaac says: Because of the
three patriarchs. R. Yehuda says: Why bless the Lord at a stop sign?
Because it says: "Be still, and know that I am God."

R.Hezekiel says: When Jephthah returned from defeating the
Ammonites,the Holy One, blessed be He, knew that a donkey would run
out of the house and overtake his daughter; but Jephthah did not stop
at the stop sign, and the donkey did not have time to come out. For
this reason he saw his daughter first and lost her. Thus he was judged
for his transgression at the stop sign.

R. Gamaliel says: R. Hillel, when he was a baby, never spoke a word,
though his parents tried to teach him by speaking and showing him the
words on a scroll. One day his father was driving through town and did
not stop at the sign. Young Hillel called out: "Stop, father!" In
this way, he began reading and speaking at the same time. Thus it is
written: "Out of the mouth of babes." R. ben Jacob says: Where did the
stop sign come from? Out of the sky, for it is written: "Forever, O
Lord, your word is fixed in the heavens." R. ben Nathan says: When
were stop signs created? On the fourth day, for it is written: "let
them serve as signs." But R. Yehoshua says: ... (continues for three
more pages...)

A Haredi [ultra-Orthodox "black hat" Jew] does the same thing as an
Orthodox Jew, except that he waits 10 seconds instead of 3. He also
replaces his brake lights with 1000 watt searchlights and connects his
horn so that it is activated whenever he touches the brake pedal.

A Breslover Hasidic Jew sees the sign and makes hisboddidus (a form
of spontaneous personal prayer) saying: "Robono Shel Olam [Master of
the Universe] -- here I am, traveling on the road in Your service, and
I'm about to face who knows what danger at this intersection in my
life. So please watch over me and help me to get through this stop
sign safely." Then, "looking neither to left nor right" as Rebbe
Nachman advises, he joyfully accepts the challenge, remains focused on
his goal -- even if the car rolls backward for a moment -- then he
hits the gas pedal and forges bravely forward, overcoming all
obstacles which the yetzer hara [evil inclination] might put in his
path.

A Lubovitcher Hasidic Jew stops at the sign and reads it very
carefully in the light of the Rebbe's teachings. (In former times he
would have used his cell phone to call Brooklyn and speak to the Rebbe
personally for advice, but this is no longer possible, may the Rebbe
rest in peace.) Next, he gets out of the car and sets up a roadside
mitzvah mobile [outreach booth], taking this opportunity to ask other
Jewish drivers who stop at the sign whether or not they have put on
tefillin today [male ritual] or whether they light Shabbos candles
[female ritual]. Having now settled there, he steadfastly refuses to
give up a single inch of the land he occupies until Moschiach [the
Jewish Messiah] comes.

A Reform Jew sees the stop sign, and coasts up to it while
contemplating the question "Do I personally feel commanded to stop?"
During this internal process he edges into the intersection and is hit
from behind by a car driven by a secular Jew who ignored the sign
completely.

A Conservative Jew reacts by calling his rabbi and asking him
whether stopping at this sign is required by unanimous ruling of the
Commission on Jewish Law or if there is a minority position. While
waiting for the rabbi's answer he is ticketed by a policeman for
obstructing traffic.

A Reconstructionist Jew, seeing the stop sign, might say: First,
this sign is part of our evolving civilization and therefore I must
honor it and stop. On the other hand, since its origins are in the
past, I must assert that "the past has a vote and not a veto," and
therefore I must study the issue carefully and decide if the argument
"to stop" is spiritually, intellectually and culturally compelling
enough to convince me to stop. If yes, I will vote with the past. If
not, I will veto it. Finally, is there any way that I can re-value or
transvalue the stop sign's message for our own time?

The Renewal-Movement-Jew meditates on whether the STOP sign
applies in all kabbalistic Four Worlds [Body-Emotion- Mind-Spirit] or
only in some of them, and if so which ones? Must he stop feeling?
thinking? being? driving? Since he has stopped to breathe and
meditate on this question, he is quite safe while he does so, barukh
HaShem. [Praise G-d.]

A scholar from the Jesus seminar concludes that the passage "STOP"
undoubtedly was never uttered by Jesus himself, but belongs entirely
to stage III of the Gospel tradition, when the church was first
confronted by traffic in its parking lot.

A NT scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark Street but
there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the ones
on Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a
completely hypothetical street called "Q". There is an excellent 300
page discussion of speculations on the origin of these stop signs and
the differences between the stop signs on Matthew and Luke street in
the scholar's commentary on the passage. There is an unfortunate
omission in the commentary, however: the author apparently forgot to
explain what the text means.

An OT scholar points out that there are a number of stylistic
differences between the first and second half of the passage "STOP".
For example, "ST" contains no enclosed areas and 5 line endings,
whereas "OP" contains two enclosed areas and only one line
termination. He concludes that the authorfor the second part is
different from the author for the first part and probably lived
hundreds of years later. Later scholars determine that the second
half is itself actually written by two separate authors because of
similar stylistic differences between the "O" and the "P".

Another prominent OT scholar notes in his commentary that the stop
sign would fit better into the context three streets back.
(Unfortunately, he neglected to explain why in his commentary.)
Clearly it was moved to its present location by a later redactor. He
thus exegetes the intersection as though the stop sign were not there.

Because of the difficulties in interpretation, another OT scholar
amends the text, changing "T" to "H". "SHOP" is much easier to
understand in context than "STOP" because of the multiplicity of
stores in the area. The textual corruption probably occurred because
"SHOP" is so similar to "STOP" on the sign several streets back that
it is a natural mistake for a scribe to make. Thus the sign should be
interpreted to announce the existence of a shopping area.

A feminist scholar notes that all commentary refers to "he" and
concludes she is thus exempt, so she runs the sign and is killed.

A radical feminist, observing what happened to the first feminist,
concludes this is a misogynist plot to get all feminists killed by
inciting them to run stop signs. So she gets out of the car and
stages a protest against the inherent sexism in all traffic signs.

An observant Orthodox Jewish woman concludes that she is not
allowed to observe the mitzvah [commandment] of stopping because she
is niddah [menstruant]. This is a dilemma, because the stop sign is
located on the way to the mikvah [ritual purification pool]. She
refers the dilemma to all the Rabbinical scholars, who shrug.

A feminist Jewish woman sees this as a sign from the Shekhinah
[feminine aspect of G-d) that translates roughly "enough already...."